The Committee to Protect Journalists said that the "Turkish authorities must immediately release all imprisoned members of the press and stop prosecuting journalists who cover Kurdish issues."
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said in a statement that the "Turkish authorities must immediately release all imprisoned members of the press and stop prosecuting journalists who cover Kurdish issues."
CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna, in New York, said that "Turkey has long been one of the world's leading jailers of journalists and this latest crackdown shows authorities’ fear of any semblance of independent reporting."
Turkey was the world’s fourth-worst jailer of journalists, with 40 behind bars at the time of CPJ’s December 1, 2022, prison census. Of those, more than half were Kurdish journalists.
On Wednesday, 12 April, the 4th Court of Serious Crimes in the southeastern city of Diyarbakır charged 17 Kurdish journalists and a media worker with membership in an illegal organization. They face up to 15 years in prison if found guilty under Turkey’s anti-terrorism laws.
